State of Emergency: Hackel says County Building shut down for months following fire

Due to smoke and water damage suffered during Wednesday’s electrical fire, the Old County Building in downtown Mount Clemens could be closed for months and may require millions of dollars’ worth of repairs and upgrades, according to Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel.

Hackel on Thursday declared a local state of emergency because the fire damaged the county’s mainframe computers, which has knocked out the Internet and phone systems. The adjacent Circuit Court Building is continuing to operate without computer operations and with only sporadic phone service. All the work is being done by hand, with pen and paper. That also applies to the adjacent Administration Building, which serves as the home for the Treasurer’s Office, Prosecutor’s Office, Office of the County Executive and Board of Commissioners.

Officials say the 200 employees who will be displaced by the Old County Building shutdown will be scattered across several other county buildings on an extended basis. But no significant disruption of services has occurred so far.

The 13-story structure, known for its gargoyles that overlook the city, was built in the 1930s and lacks a modern fire suppression sprinkler system. The building needs a thorough restoration because it was “grandfathered” — exempted — from numerous building and fire codes. It also apparently contains large quantities of asbestos, which has resulted in Hazmat teams coming in to clean up debris.

“Yes, there will be a cost,” Hackel said. “But if this building caught on fire and somebody died, that’s unacceptable.”

The fire was apparently caused when a faulty water pipe began leaking at about 4 a.m. Wednesday within the walls of the facility and sparked an electrical fire in the basement and on the second floor.

Meanwhile, county workers are doing their best to carry on with paper documents, a frantic return to carbon copies, and limited phone service. The county’s recent switch to Google email services has allowed a continuation of communications for most departments. Phones are working only within individual buildings. Printers have been rendered useless.

“Slowly but surely, things will get back to order,” said county board Chairman Dave Flynn. “Certainly … there is a ripple effect throughout county government. The main priority at this point is to assess the damage and try to restore services.”

At the county Clerk’s Office, the concealed weapons licensing board will hold its regularly scheduled session today, at the Sheriff’s Department, with the help of Lansing to tap into a state government computer database. About 250 people seeking a Concealed Pistol License — or a license renewal or restoration — are expected to attend.

“This is a team effort,” said Clerk Carmella Sabaugh. “The computers are down. What to do? We have to go old-school and do everything on paper.”

The Register of Deeds agency set up a temporary shop on Wednesday at a deli counter in the Court Building lobby to accept property deeds and mortgage. But they were unable to process those documents due to a lack of computer access. One of the county’s computer vendors is sending equipment on an emergency basis to return some operations to normal speed.

Special arrangements were made with Google, another vendor, to ship three Google Chromebooks on Monday to Sabaugh’s staff. When those computers are running, the Register of Deeds’ 24 employees will move temporarily to the county facility in the Clemens Center in Mount Clemens.

Wireless signal devices were employed by staff to tie together five computers that could bypass the damaged mainframe computers.

In the Circuit Court jury room, workers have been operating “completely blind,” relying upon personal smartphones to communicate by phone and email with those scheduled for jury duty — and their employers — after the fire. Those who have received a summons are being told to appear for jury duty as scheduled and to send emails to juryroom@macombgov.org if they have questions.

County officials were warned as recently as earlier this month that stationing all of their IT equipment in the basement of an aging, out-of date building was troublesome and potentially dangerous. Ironically, the IT Department and all of its equipment were scheduled to be moved to a new, state-of-the-art county communications center in about six months.